 Okay, you're welcome back. Right now we're being joined by Mr. Shergoune-Shakwiton. We're going to be talking about the fact that the federal government may revive economy by unlocking one trillion dollars in asset sales. Mr. Shergoune-Shakwiton has just joined us. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Good morning, Mr. Yambou. Okay, let's go ahead. Yeah, let's just try to quickly make sense of what it means to unlock the economy, you know, unlock the economy, and this time it is being tied to the asset sale that will go up to one trillion dollars. Let us just understand what that is, because first thing that comes to mind is the oneselame againo. So what is it, really? Well, just going by conventionally, it sounds like a good idea. If you go on in for what it is, it's not actually a good idea. The country has a huge debt for them, a huge debt obligation, but the country also has a massive asset stock. And usually what you would say to somebody that is going, why are you sitting on so much, so much asset, and you are owning so much? It's not efficient to get rid of your debt obligations by selling some of your assets. So conventionally, we've done this to make sense. The challenge with this concept is that the assets that we're speaking about are not exactly in a state where you will be able to derive the kind of value that they ought to attract. And that will be a problem. So before you get to the point of selling or theorizing or any other model that you might want to use for certain value to those assets, there is a lot of work to be done. So I like the fact that it takes unlocking the value in those assets but not unlocking, you know, a new talent. What we will have to do as a country. So let's take the refineries as an example. Our assets of the country are the kind of defaults on special or, you know, what other model that we want to use. But before you get to that stage, let's deal with the types of work that are built into those assets themselves which have been in almost no particular condition. So that's just an example. And you can take that example and attend to the new product of our assets. The only assets that I think we have is that. You see, you can not snap your finger and put it out for sale. You can't see sales, you know. Once you go outside the room and see sales, there's not a lot of more. For example, premium sales, you know, those assets, getting that done efficiently before you can think about attracting the investment through them. I think there's a lot of work that will generally be done with the potential to get to work. Okay. How is this different from what, for instance, the PDP presidential candidate was saying prior to the election? He was talking about sale of assets. He was talking about privatization and all that. And so many people including the party in government right now were berating him that he wants to sell it to his cronies, and that's it. It's a bad policy. So what's the difference between what he was saying at that time and what is being mulled right now, what is being talked about in corridors of power right now? Yeah, there's no difference at all. And if you remember, even with the party administration who went through the term actually explored the option of selling off some assets and the itself of concessions on a good example will be some heritage assets like the National Fairfax in Lagos, you know. The difference now is that there was suspicion at that time, especially with regards to the PDP presidential candidate at that time. There was a suspicion on some in each section of the country which regards to the intention. You know, so the candidate said, I've learned it's my friend. Of course he has come out to confuse them perhaps to try to figure out exactly what he meant, but I don't think that in Lagos would want to see our assets talk of one trivial matter, get certified and get quantified and attract investment or both assets end up in the hands of families and friends of the people in government. That's one of the problems. And I think in Lagos, that problem has not gone away. If we want to go down that route and the type of transparency that we saw in the region for telecommunications in the year 2000 must be replicated. If the process is perfectly transparent open to public scrutiny, there's a public procurement process, there's a public meeting process, then I don't think there will be too much of a problem. The only problem is then the concept of how we should around how to optimize those assets. So I think it's mainly a trust issue more than anything else. Yeah, but do you have any confidence that this government will do differently or better that these things will be sold to people who are neutral and not necessarily connected to the government? Because I don't know. You're looking at the point. I'm just asking, Mr. Ashokka. I'm just asking. You don't know. I don't know. It's a matter of opinion. I always say and I'm saying this in recent months that the best way to fix what will happen in the future maybe not the best way but one of the best ways to fix the future is simply to look into the past. And if you want to know what a man will do tomorrow, look behind you and check what you have got to do yesterday. So if you take that analogy and you look at all of the questions and the creativity and the lack of transparency that we have in the running of the shares of the government since 1999 to today, then you have your answer. I'm not going to say more than that because we don't know. It's just a matter of opinion. For me, I wouldn't be particularly confident to learn it. Since you don't know some of the things or you don't want to talk about some of the things, let's leave them there. Mr. Ashokka, you said something happened in 2000 and it has to be replicated. What are some of these things that were done at that time that you think made that process more transparent than the ones that we may have had in the following years when things like this come up? Yes. I mean, look, when that process, we come from my part, the spectrum frequencies that were to be sold were created by the government of the 10 to 12 Abacha, around 1997, 1998, in fact, back in 1996. But when Abacha came on board, as soon as he came, he started talking about these things that were going to have the deep end process for the telephonic licensing in Nigeria for GSM. The conversation was public. When it was time for the process to start, the advertisements or the public notices inviting leaders and investors was public. So, and then right at the beginning of the process, the pathway from beginning to end was clarified publicly. What this did was that it attracted the best operators in the world to that process. So, which is why you then had the likes of NPM and Market Leaders in Africa and a couple of other leaders come in and then take interest in that process. So, if we're going to talk about sale of assets, strategic assets, the transition of some assets, stock, and all of that, we must follow that path personally. There must be transparency, there must be, there must be a separate effort to attract the best investors from around the world and there must be a departure from believing and allowing people that have access to the quality of power to holiday, whatever word you want to use to beat for these assets. A lot of times we know that GSM is usually got small screen and you can see an example of that in what is happening in the power sector today. A lot of the investors that went into that sector simply lack the competence and the capacity to run those ventures profitably but the process was not transparent. So, we have to move away from that if we're going to succeed with this. If you ask me, I am not even sure exactly where we should be going toward the right now. I think before you start talking about sale of assets, national assets, knowing what we know about how governments run in Nigeria, the first thing that I expect the government to do is to clean up the process of governance and the structures of governance. The corruption that is then in government must be dealt with as long as you have not done that. Who will end up exactly where we started from? Because if there are ventures that would not allow this thing to work, we would still be there. So, I really think that, you know, and this is the challenge I have with everything that this government has been doing to start it up a month ago, there is no conversation, there is no conversation around the question of corruption. There is none. We're just going along that road with the business of government and governance in Nigeria is normal and it's done in the way it's done all over the world. It's not. We have that normality. We have situations and scenarios that are simply logical, that defy economic logic, that defy economic quality. The cause of corruption. So, the president must speak to this issue. There has to be a clear, deliberate plan on how the cause of corruption is going to be dealt with. It does not do that. I'm sorry. There is no beautiful founding policy, there is no beautiful founding project that will work. We have never lacked ideas in this country. We never lacked good policies. We never lacked good law. The problem has always been implementation that's sabotaged by corruption. So, this thing about this thing, if you ask my position, it will fail. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is how much we can go. Mr. Schock-Witzen, thank you so much for being a part of our program today. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Schock-Witzen is a principal partner at Woodridge and Scott Consulting. He was best known as a public affairs analyst and he was giving us his thoughts. This is what will leave you with this morning. Life is not what you expect. It is made up of the most unexpected twists and turns. That's according to Ilaia Raja. We're hoping that we're going to meet again tomorrow to continue from where we stopped. In the meantime, my name is Nya Amidou. I guide you. Thanks for being there.